Deception, blackmail, murder, revenge - these are themes of stories that move from London to the coast of Spain, from Mauritius to Dublin. Whether his subject is assassination by stealth, gun-smuggling or the cruel confidence trick Forsyth is never less than compulsive.Here are eight stories with the Forsyth touch - a brilliant and original collection by an incomparable craftsman of suspense.

Justice does not always come easily, and it comes in many guises. On the seedier side of London, a shopkeeper witnesses a brutal beating in “The Veteran” (read by Patrick Macnee). In a better neighborhood, a famous London auction house is scammed in “The Art of the Matter” (also read by Macnee).

"Rescue Party" was first published in the May 1946 issue of Astounding Science-Fiction.

Sir Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008) is regarded as one of the most-influential science fiction writers of all time. He was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.

From America's favorite storyteller, here are 18 new tales of Lake Wobegon, handpicked from live broadcasts of A Prairie Home Companion.

It is summer 1999 in Russia, a country on the threshold of anarchy. An interim president sits powerless in Moscow as his nation is wracked by famine and inflation, crime and corruption, and seething hordes of the unemployed roam the streets. For the West, Russia is a basket case. But for Igor Komarov, one-time army sergeant who has risen to leadership of the right-wing UPF party, the chaos is made to order.

Plan Aurora, hatched in a remote dacha in the forest outside Moscow and initiated with relentless brilliance and skill, is a plan within a plan that, in its spine-chilling ingenuity, breaches the ultra-secret Fourth Protocol and turns the fears that shaped it into a living nightmare. A crack Soviet agent, placed under cover in a quiet English country town, begins to assemble a jigsaw of devastation.

The number one New York Times best-selling master of international intrigue takes readers into the bleeding-edge world of technological espionage in a propulsive thriller that feels chillingly real. Former chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service Adrian Weston is awoken in the middle of the night by a phone call from the prime minister. Her news is shocking: The Pentagon, the NSA, and the CIA have been hacked simultaneously, their seemingly impenetrable firewalls breached by an unknown enemy known only as "The Fox".

Attorney Calvin Dexter hangs his shingle in a quiet New Jersey town, has a reasonably successful practice, and takes the hills strong while triathlon training. But Dexter is no ordinary lawyer. On Sundays, he reads the paper and shuffles around his dark, empty house, trying to forget about a life he has lost forever. Until, of course, Dexter reads something in the papers that sends him the necessary signal. Until one of the handful who know of Dexter's other life tries to contact him. For in a world that has forgotten right and wrong, few can settle a score like Cal Dexter can.

What if you had carte blanche to fight evil? Nothing held back, nothing off the table. What would you do? For decades, the world has been fighting the drug cartels, and losing, their billions of dollars making them the most powerful and destructive organizations on earth. Until one man is asked to take charge. Paul Devereaux used to run Special Operations for the CIA before they retired him for being too ruthless. Now he can have anything he requires, do anything he thinks necessary. No boundaries, no rules, no questions asked.

In Northern Virginia, a secret agency named TOSA (Technical Operations Support Activity) has one mission: To track, find, and kill those so dangerous to the United States that they are on a short, very close-held document known as the Kill List. Now a new name has been added: A terrorist of frightening effectiveness called the Preacher, who radicalizes young Muslims living abroad to carry out assassinations. Unfortunately for him, one of his targets is a retired Marine general, whose son is TOSA’s top tracker of men. The Preacher has made it personal - and now the hunt is on...

Thomas Paine published Common Sense in 1776, a time when America was a hotbed of revolution. The pamphlet, which called for America's political freedom, sold more than 150,000 copies in three months. Paine not only spurred his fellow Americans to action but soon came to symbolize the spirit of the Revolution itself. His persuasive pieces, written so elegantly, spoke to the hearts and minds of all those fighting for freedom from England.

The recently married Alix Martin is obsessed with a recurring dream of her new husband's murder. Each time she can see the murderer clearly, and it's the mild-mannered man she had previously been engaged to, taking his revenge. But, what's worse is that at the end of the dream she thanks the murderer. Perplexed, Alix tries to calm herself by spending time in the garden of her picturesque cottage. But her gardener confuses her further by wishing her well on her trip to London - a trip which Alix knows nothing about. Now Alix is scared: Is the gardener imagining things, or is she?

The grand-prize winner of a writing contest sponsored by the Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper, "The Gold-Bug" was one of Poe's most popular stories during his lifetime. Similar to his ratiocination tales - early versions of what we now call detective fiction - "The Gold-Bug" is full of mystery and adventure and includes a cryptogram, invisible ink, a scarab-like bug, and pirate treasure.

It looks like just another gray March morning in the tough urban district nicknamed Nowhere when seven lives converge. Any one of them could have a dark motive. Any one of them could be walking into a trap. When the fog lifts, it will all be much clearer - that a single, shattering act of violence has marked each of them forever.

Waiting for his car to be fixed, Mr. Satterthwaite sits in a tea shop called the Harlequin cafe, thinking of his friend Harley Quin, whom he hasn’t seen in many years. Then, in a burst of sunshine, the very same Mr. Quin walks through the door, along with his diligent dog, Hermes. Satterthwaite is telling him the very long history of the family he is off to visit, when their conversation is interrupted by the abrupt entrance of a member of that very same family, intent upon replacing her harlequin cups.

The suicide of an elderly German Jew explodes into revelation after revelation: of a Mafia-like organization called Odessa...of a real-life fugitive known as the "Butcher of Riga"...of a young German journalist turned obsessed avenger...and, ultimately, of brilliant, ruthless plot to reestablish the worldwide power of SS mass murderers and to carry out Hitler's chilling "Final Solution."

Attorney Calvin Dexter hangs his shingle in a quiet New Jersey town, has a reasonably successful practice, and takes the hills strong while triathlon training. But Dexter is no ordinary lawyer. On Sundays, he reads the paper and shuffles around his dark, empty house, trying to forget about a life he has lost forever. Until, of course, Dexter reads something in the papers that sends him the necessary signal. Until one of the handful who know of Dexter's other life tries to contact him. For in a world that has forgotten right and wrong, few can settle a score like Cal Dexter can.

Knocking off a bank or an armored truck is merely crude. Knocking off an entire republic has, I feel, a certain style." So says mining magnate Sir James Manson, a shadowy titan of London's financial district, who is scheming a coup d'état in the small West African dictatorship of Zangaro, where a secret source of platinum lies waiting to be exploited.

Deception, blackmail, murder, revenge - these are themes of stories that move from London to the coast of Spain, from Mauritius to Dublin. Whether his subject is assassination by stealth, gun-smuggling or the cruel confidence trick Forsyth is never less than compulsive.Here are eight stories with the Forsyth touch - a brilliant and original collection by an incomparable craftsman of suspense.

It is summer 1999 in Russia, a country on the threshold of anarchy. An interim president sits powerless in Moscow as his nation is wracked by famine and inflation, crime and corruption, and seething hordes of the unemployed roam the streets. For the West, Russia is a basket case. But for Igor Komarov, one-time army sergeant who has risen to leadership of the right-wing UPF party, the chaos is made to order.

Plan Aurora, hatched in a remote dacha in the forest outside Moscow and initiated with relentless brilliance and skill, is a plan within a plan that, in its spine-chilling ingenuity, breaches the ultra-secret Fourth Protocol and turns the fears that shaped it into a living nightmare. A crack Soviet agent, placed under cover in a quiet English country town, begins to assemble a jigsaw of devastation.

Justice does not always come easily, and it comes in many guises. On the seedier side of London, a shopkeeper witnesses a brutal beating in “The Veteran” (read by Patrick Macnee). In a better neighborhood, a famous London auction house is scammed in “The Art of the Matter” (also read by Macnee).

In Northern Virginia, a secret agency named TOSA (Technical Operations Support Activity) has one mission: To track, find, and kill those so dangerous to the United States that they are on a short, very close-held document known as the Kill List. Now a new name has been added: A terrorist of frightening effectiveness called the Preacher, who radicalizes young Muslims living abroad to carry out assassinations. Unfortunately for him, one of his targets is a retired Marine general, whose son is TOSA’s top tracker of men. The Preacher has made it personal - and now the hunt is on...

The number one New York Times best-selling master of international intrigue takes readers into the bleeding-edge world of technological espionage in a propulsive thriller that feels chillingly real. Former chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service Adrian Weston is awoken in the middle of the night by a phone call from the prime minister. Her news is shocking: The Pentagon, the NSA, and the CIA have been hacked simultaneously, their seemingly impenetrable firewalls breached by an unknown enemy known only as "The Fox".

Fifty years after revealing the secrets of Odessa, an underground organization of former Nazis angling to regain power, Peter Miller is a retired legend in the journalism community. He's spent the last decade caring for his grandson Georg, after the death of his son and daughter in law in a tragic cara accident. Always suspecting that his own long list of enemies might have been behind his son’s death, Peter pulled back from his career to keep Georg safe. But he could do nothing to stop the young man from following in his footsteps.